THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS
Once a husband who was reading a newspaper looked at his wife and said, "You won't believe that it says that in an avarage day a man uses two thousand and two hundred words while a woman uses around five thousand words. That is more than double. The wife looked at him and said, "It is because women have to tell men everything twice".
man was reading the paper when an ad caught his eye: $500 Porsche! New! The man thought that it was very unusual to sell a Porsche for $500, and he thought it might be a joke, but thought it was worth a shot. So he went to the lady’s house and sure enough, she had an almost brand new Porsche.
“Wow!” the man said. “Can I take it for a test drive?” Unlike what he expected, the man found that the car ran perfectly and took it back to the lady’s house.“Why are you selling me this great Porsche for only $500?”
“My husband just ran off with his secretary, and he told me I could have the house and the furniture as long as I sold his Porsche and sent him the money.”
1. Today's gospel talks about the lost life. From today's gospel we come to know the three important things such as the blessing of the believer, the blessing of the unknown believer and finally what will happen to those who do not share their spiritual gifts, knowledge and understanding with others.
I invite you all to look at today's gospel in a different angle. So far, we reflected on the lost sheep, lost coin, lost son and last week on lost job and today on lost life...I mean spiritual life.
2. The blessing of the believers:
The rich man in today’s gospel represents all the Pharisees, scribes and the chosen people. They were all given blessings upon blessings. Since God Himself chose them, everything was given to them. They enjoyed freedom and life; they enjoyed riches and happiness. Nothing was lacking in their life. They were blessed with everything. They experienced perfection and absolute happiness. They were given more of everything.
As we are chosen by God through His Son Jesus, we are also given special blessings to enjoy everything. Complete bliss and enlightenment is possible for us all in Jesus Christ our Lord. And Jesus Himself became the way, truth and the life for us. We all became children of God in Jesus.
Today though more than one billion catholics are living around the world. The harsh reality is that people are not practicing their faith as they did before. Instead of saying, people are not practicing faith, Catholic church more and more begin to understand and focus on clergy now. We-priests are called to take responsiblity of what we are doing. We have to try our best to bring the Good News.
Today less than two percent of the people are practicing their faith in Hallond and less than five percent in France and Italy and less tha ten percent in Canada. We are called to share our spiritual blessings with others.
3. The blessing of the unknown believer:
Lazarus in today’s gospel represents the gentiles or all unknown believers. Even though He didn’t know about the creator God or the God of Israel, he came to the rich man or the man who practices his faith, but he refused to share God’s blessings, love and kindness. But the man waited at the door longing to know about God but the believer gave nothing to him so God himself came down and blessed him abundantly. The unknown believer became so rich in faith and began to enjoy every spiritual gift but on the other hand the rich man lost everything and was disconnected from the love and kindness of God our father completely.
Conclusion:
Today’s gospel invites us to share our spiritual knowledge, wisdom and understanding; our spiritual blessings and gifts with those who are struggling to know the Father. It is our duty to give. As we give and share our spiritual gifts, they multiply as thirty, sixty and hundredfold. Yes, when we give our spiritual blessings, they will come back to us more and thus we will have more of everything. Amen.
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